Happy to see a skeptic enthused by this technology. My son-in-law was recently paralyzed. There are a lot of very optimistic claims, often being made by scammers preying on people who are already suffering terribly. A lot of hype and false promises going on. But also some legitimate reasons to be hopeful.

Buying the Miguel Nicoleilis book as per Hilary Mark Nelson’s suggestion.

Science-Based Medicine » Brain-Machine Interface…

A battery installed inside may be charged by inducction. Moreover they could be charged by movement, like some watches.

This is getting silly. Putting an inductive coil in someone’s head presents certain practical obstacles, if you will. Self-winding piezoelectric clockworks are just apropos of nothing.

For funding, research and peer finding please refer to the non-profit Aging Portfolio.

Don’t get me wrong, my powerchair is great, but it lacks a certain oomph, or. visual impact.

mouse -

can we use sensory feedback to train to brain to stop recognizing a particular sensation?

I’m thinking of things like phantom limb and paresthesia.

I’ve used ad hoc CBT on myself to help with paraesthesia, and some new, but surprisingly simple methods, have been aiding amputees with PLS:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/pain/microsite/medicine2.html

The answer is mirrors+CBT. I have an acquaintance born with a missing foot who was plagued by PLS, and they’ve undergone a trial of mirror training, and experienced reduced pain and negative feedback.

As it seems like the ‘map’ to the body is hard-coded, maybe the sensory training mentioned above could, as you suggested, be developed to assist with extreme paraesthesia and PLS.

Is there really any bad type of giant mecha? Though I personally lean towards Glitterboy – it stretches the definition of both “giant” and “mecha”, but you do get a boom gun and you don’t have to get out to poop or eat.

I didn’t know what Giant Mecha was either but I do now. (google images: giant mecha)

Good grief. I then went straight to…google images: cute kittens

There do not as yet seem to be any applications available for giant mecha control.

Can I come work with you in about 6-12 years? We really need to get the Giant Mechs prepared. I’m just not sure if WLU is thinking Robotech style mechs or MechWarrior style.
Either way, where did I park my 2000 ton mech?

no, no, don’t tell me. I prefer to enjoy the mystery.

Do I wish were born ten years later, so I stood a better chance of benefiting from this kind of advance? Or do I appreciate when I was actually born because I saw what the world was like before the massive leaps forward in computing?

It’s nice to live in exciting technological (wow, check out this touch screen phone!) rather than Chinese proverb (wow, check out how many of my fellow farmers died because of civil war) times.

Maybe this is a weird leap, but – if we use sensory feedback to train the brain to recognize an object as part of the body, can we use sensory feedback to train to brain to stop recognizing a particular sensation?

I’m thinking of things like phantom limb and paresthesia.

As someone with impaired proprioception, and multifocal neuropathy that’s rendered my sensory nerves virtually useless, this field is incredibly exciting.

I am almost as intelligent as a monkey, so who knows? Perhaps the future has a glimmer of. hope.

Naw dude, that was just some serious technobabble, and it looks like you fell for it

But seriously. Like you said, the implementation is the hard part. Hence the dearth of giant mechas.

Our research group works with surface electrodes, but we of course follow all the implanted electrode work. They are definitely the future, being able to detect the activity of individual neurons rather than millions or billions makes a huge difference. However they are still a way away from permanent, everyday use implants, even for those who really need them like tetraplegics. Let alone amputees, or even normal folk who don’t like moving to change the channel! When they leave the laboratory, I imagine they will be wireless to reduce the risk of infection. I see surface electrode systems being used sooner, and then slowly being replaced by implanted systems, for less and less serious disorders, until we eventually buy implants like a new mobile phone.

I am particularly fascinated by this technologies ability to treat a wide spectrum of disorders in the same way. We are often capturing movement at the ‘intent to move’ stage, so if anything in between this brain system and actual movement of the body is impaired – we can just bypass it all with the same device and restore some quality of life. This means the same treatment can be used for paralysis, amputation, muscular dystrophy, stroke, tremors, muscle weakness, cerebral palsy etc…

This ‘intent to move’ even creates some interesting ethical dilemmas. Since suppression of a movement can take place at a later stage, if a patient pulls a trigger – did they actually mean to do it? Or did they only imagine it? Or would normally have stopped themselves?

We also have the potential to expose useful brain signals that are normally contained entirely within the brain. For example there is a distinct signal when we observe an error – and it is different if we make the error, or somebody else makes the error. Preparing safety systems like brakes for your car? Or improving the accuracy of speech to text perhaps?

Suggestions are easy, execution not so much. I wonder if it could be done without heating the tissue an undue amount?

I do wonder about an implantable post that can accommodate a clip on device similar to the BAHA (Bone Anchor Hearing Aid)..But the BAHA post is implanted into the skull to receive vibrations – it’s not implanted into the brain. Obviously I’m in over my head (sorry).

I heard an interview with Miguel Nicoleilis on the Diane Rehms show awhile back. Very interesting and worth checking out if you want to hear more.

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-12-30/miguel-nicolelis-beyond-boundaries-rebroadcast